peal through the hall, and appear to convey things which it would be awful to examine too near, and perilous to question. Nay, to the more trivial circumstances of his place, when addressing the House of Lords, he scrupulously attended. He rose slowly from his seat; he left the woolsack with deliberation ; but he went not to the nearest place, like ordinary chancellors, the sons of mortal men; he drew back by a pace or two, and standing, as it were askance, and partly behind the huge bale he had quitted for a season, he began to pour out, first in a growl, and then in a clear and louder roll, the matter which he had to deliver, and which, for the most part, consisted in some positive assertions, some personal vituperation, some sarcasms at classes, some sentences pronounced upon individuals, as if they were standing before him for judgment, some vague mysterious threats of things purposely not expressed, and abundant protestations of conscience and duty, in which they who keep the consciences of kings are apt to indulge.—Lord Brougham.

LORD LOUGHBOROUGH AND GEORGE
THE THIRD.

LORD LOUGHBOROUGH entered Parliament as a fierce opponent of Lord North's administration, and joined it when their policy, at the commencement of the war with America, was most questionable. Lord Brougham ascribes to his influence "the fancy respecting the coronation oath, which so entirely obtained possession of George III.'s mind, and actuated his conduct during the whole discussion of Irish affairs." The cabinet to

LORD THURLOW.

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which he belonged was broken up, and he was made an earl, and laid on the shelf. In the hope of regaining his ascendancy, he took an uncomfortable villa, which had only the recommendation of being in the vicinity of Windsor Castle, and here for three years he was to be seen dancing attendance on royalty, unnoticed and neglected by the King, who, when he heard of his late Chancellor's death, after an illness of a few hours, having cautiously inquired of the messenger if he were really dead, coldly observed, "Then he has not left a worse man behind him;" though the phrase which the King actually used was, says Lord Brougham, less decorous and more unfeeling than the above.

LORD THURLOW AND THE REGENCY QUESTION. LORD THURLOW's conduct in this matter was extremely cunning. In 1788, he actively intrigued with the Whigs on the Regency Question, in opposition to his colleagues; but suddenly discovering from one of the physicians the approaching convalescence of the royal patient, he at one moment's notice deserted the Carlton House party, and, says Lord Brougham, "came down with an assurance unknown to all besides, perhaps even to himself not known before, and in his place undertook the defence of the King's right against his son and his partisans;" adding in conclusion, “And when I forget my Sovereign, may my God forget me." When, however, Thurlow attempted, in 1792, the same trick with Pitt, whom he cordially hated, which he had played off under a former administration, by

voting against his colleagues, the King, on Mr. Pitt's application, at once consented to Lord Thurlow's removal, "without any struggle or even apparent reluctance."

SIR WILLIAM GRANT'S LIVING.

SIR WILLIAM GRANT, Master of the Rolls, was a man of simple habits, and somewhat remarkable for his taciturnity and reserve. As a politician, he was more narrow-minded than even several other most distinguished lawyers. With him originated the phrase of "the wisdom of our ancestors." In his time, the Rolls Court sat in the evening, from six to ten; and Sir William dined after the Court rose. His servant, it is said, when he went to bed, left two bottles of wine on the table, which he always found empty in the morning. Sir William Grant lived in the Rolls House, occupying two or three rooms on the ground-floor; and when showing them to his successor in the Rolls, he said "Here are two or three good rooms; this is my dining-room; my library and bedroom are beyond; and I am told," he added, "there are some good rooms up stairs, but I was never there."

AN IMPRESSIVE COUNSEL.

LORD CLARENDON, after he had completed his residence at Oxford, studied law under his uncle Nicholas Hyde, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Burnet, the historian of the Reformation, tells the following about the historian of the Rebellion :-" When he first began to grow eminent in his profession of the law, he went down to visit his father in Wiltshire,

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who one day, as they were walking in the fields together, observed to him, that men of his profession were apt to stretch the prerogative (of the Crown) too far, and injure liberty; but charged him, if he ever came to any eminence in his profession, never to sacrifice the laws and liberty of his country to his own interests or the will of his prince.' He repeated this twice, and immediately fell into a fit of apoplexy, of which he died in a few hours; and this advice had so lasting an influence upon the son, that he ever after observed and pursued it."

USE OF RED TAPE.

CURRAN, when Master of the Rolls, said to Mr. Grattan, "You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you would buy a few yards of red tape, and tie up your bills and papers."

CECIL AT GRAY'S INN.

AN anecdote of Cecil Lord Burghley's Gray's-inn days, is thus related by his old historian, in the quaint language of the age in which he flourished:-" A mad companion having enticed him to play, in a short time he lost all his money, bedding, and books to his companion, having never used play before. And being afterwards among his other company, he told them how such a one had misled him, saying he would presently have a device to be even with him. And with a long trouke he made a hole in the wall, near his playfellow's bed-head, and in a fearful voice spake thus through the trouke:-'O! mortal man, repent!—re

pent of thy horrible time consumed in play, cozenage, and lewdness, or else thou art damned, and canst not be saved!' which, being spoken at midnight, when he was all alone, so amazed him, as drove him into a sweat for fear. Most penitent and heavy the next day, in the presence of youths, he told with trembling what a fearful voice spake to him at midnight, vowing never to play again; and, calling for Mr. Cecil, asked him forgiveness on his knees, and restored him all his money, bedding, and books. So two gamesters were both reclaimed with this merry device, and never played more." Who Burghley's "playfellows" were nowhere appears; but the future statesman himself was a married man during the greater part of his sojourn at Gray's Inn, and ought to have been more steady than to stake his "books and bedding," after losing his "monėy;" but from many memoranda of Gray's Inn, which have come down to our time, it would seem that the students of this Society were rather an unruly set. Pepys writes thus, in May, 1667-"Great talk of how the barristers and students of Gray's Inn rose in rebellion against the Benchers the other day, who outlawed them, and a great deal to do; but now they are at peace again."

CURRAN AT A DEBATING SOCIETY. CURRAN'S account of his introduction and débût at a debating society is the identical "first appearance" of hundreds. "Upon the first of our assembling," he says, "I attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the anticipated honour of being styled 'the learned mem